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A friend ask me to please fix him a loaf of Jewish Rye. I need more info???

A friend ask me to please fix him a loaf of Jewish Rye. I need more info???

Sounded simple enough. I bake about three times a week. can't be too hard. I went to my bookshelf and pulled out my favorites, and realized ....I am lost.Is it a special rye? Is it dark or light? I have had marble. I live in the southern US, and they are no bakeries here within 100 miles of my house. So we bake! Mr. Joe used to live in N.Y. and has been transplanted here into what he says is a bread hell for a yankee boy! When he found out I bake he has become a regular customer. I bake for the love of it and am way out of my league on the rye bread issue. I looked in the the BBA, but that really didn't answer my question. Is there any one that might offer a suggestion? Mr Joe is a sweet fellow that is a long way from home. I can understand how he is starved for "his home comfort food" and who doesn't want a friend who needs more bread? As if we need another reason to get flour on our counter ( and our tummy!) My husband suggested I get another book, but this website is the most informed bunch in the world as far as I am concerned and if you guys don't know, then no one does! Every one here is so nice and helpful. You don't try to make anyone feel dumb for asking questions. Thanks you all. It is a pleasure to catch up here with my reading every day while I drink my morning coffee. Have a great weekend everyone!

I believe a Jewish rye is basically a light rye with caraway seeds (like you'd have with a sandwich in a New York deli). If your buddy has the patience, then this recipe is for you. It is based on Hamelman's 40% rye recipe. It does require you beginning a starter, but it's well worth it. If you want to check it out, try this link to my bakery's 'under construction' website, http://thebackhomebakery.com/Recipes.html and click on the sour rye tab. If you'd like info on beginning the starter, let me know, and I'll post that.

And yes I do need the sourdough starter recipe you use for this. I assume it is the same as others, but in case it is not...my old starter has gone on to another place and I need to start over. This is great baking weather here. It is cold and dreary with occasional rain. So lets just stay in and bake bread! I also checked out your Portuguese Sweet bread recipe. My father in law is an old Sea Dog from the Navy, and while he was stationed in New Jersey he fell in love with this bread. while I am waiting on the starter to come to life, I think I will make a few loaves of your PSB for dad. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. And also thank you for having the recipes posted in weight, I find those so much easier . Happy New Year up in the snowy north!

I'd love to hear how your PSB turns out, and also what your father in law thinks of it. Just a note on that, as for all of the recipes involving eggs, I have the weight listed instead of the #of eggs. Since the weight of eggs varies so much, I do it like this:

I just get the eggs close, then adjust with the liquid, in this case milk.

This is a summary of the sour rye starter ala simplified Hamelman (flour is organic whole rye):

Day 1: 150g flour, 150g water mixed (flat beater) to a paste and covered

Day 2: 100g from day 1, 100g water, 100g flour mixed to a paste and covered

Day 3 to 6: same as day 2, but with 2 feedings per day, 12 hours apart

Day 7: ready to use, or continue for another 3 days for a more full flavor

After your starter is established, you can cut back the size of it to conserve your flour. My daily starter is now 50g from the previous day + 50g flour, +50g water, removing 100 g to keep it from getting too big. I think that's about it.

Portuguese Sweet rolls: I finally did it, upload successfully that is! I hope that with the reduced picture quality from being a smaller file, it doesn't take away from the look of their yumminess! I don't know how the people in magazines do it. My food photos never look as good as it does in real life like they do in the books. I am green with envy!Thanks for the info. It totally makes sence to do it that way now that you mention it. I posted somewhere here down the line when they were rising and tried to post a picture but it siad finally after 30 minutes of trying that my file was to big. I don't really know how to re-format. It's a good thing my baking skills are better than my computer skills! But anyway, they are out of the oven now and the smell almost made my husband stay home from going out on his errands! They are fabulous! And the dough is so silky to work with! My first thought was that it was going to be sticky, but just a bare bit of flour on my hands and it was wonderful to work with.

Thank you for all your help. Sure you can just go by any old recipe, but if you've never tasted something it is hard to get a feel for it. After reading yours, and everybody elses post I have more of a feeling of the bread Mr. Joe misses from home. Thanks Mark and everyone who posted! Now I'm going off to the kitchen to mix up a batch of starter. I keep posting, and I'll keep at the photo issue, I think I may have an idea .

The rolls were yummy, and to be quite honest I halved the recipe to start with and we ended up eating them all! I'll have to make a new batch for my father in law! I do have a question though. I think my yeast is getting a little old. I order it from KA and I don't have the date on the container since I switched it to an airtight one and refrigerated it when it came , ANYWAY... is the texture supposed to be light and airy or a little heavy to stand up to say like um sandwich fixings? My bread that I did the day before didn't have the loft it usually does and since I am suspicious of my yeast date, and haven't made the rolls before I don't know. They came out somewhat heavy, but would have made a great hamburger bun. they could really stand up to the yum yum juices of a good sandwich. wow Mark, the possibilities are endless! With the hint of sweetness, I am already looking forward to the next batch, and I think I'll do maybe a Hawaiian grilled chicken sandwich with some grilled pineapple and maybe thin sliced red onion. Too fine! Thank you so much.

And by the way, my paste starter has had it's day 2 feeding and is resting comfortably on my kitchen counter. Hope you have a Great New Years Day tomorrow.

Thanks Audra, I'll use that picture in the recipes section. Anyways, it's usually a pretty fluffy bread, but you can vary that based on the final proof time. One thing I FORGOT to mention on my recipe is that I use instant yeast (SAF 'red label' ), so that might have messed with you if you used the active dry stuff. I guess I would buy some new yeast since it's pretty cheap, (someone probably has SAF instant yeast near you now) and go from there. If it hasn't gotten significantly larger and it's about to go in the oven, let it proof another hour (if you want it fluffier) and/or maybe put it in a warmer place. Also, having the liquids a little warmer during mixing will speed up both proof times and give it more loft. I've filled these rolls with azuki bean (sweetened red bean paste) and they're very good. Take care.

So far my kitchen is pretty cool, and I have just been feeding and leaving on the counter. It really got going last week when it did warm up here a little. After the mold on the inside of the jar fiasco, and he was in a shiny clean jar things began to look up. There has been MAJOR bubbles in there, and it has a warm sorta nutty pleasantly yeasty smell. If it is any indication of how the bread will be I can hardily wait! I decided to get fresh yeast from KA, and it SAID that it was shipped early in the week but this is Sunday and alas....no box. I would have loved to play with it all weekend and have time to practice on the loaf. Oh well, there's always tomorrow! Please advise and the starter and do I continue to feed daily? Thank you.

I would say, if you're happy with the starter, then continue what you're doing. I don't refrigerate mine and I'm real pleased with the flavor. A side note, I don't know if you are topping your starter off with a dusting of extra flour after you feed it, but if not, it will mellow out the taste a little bit and give it a less acidic smell. When I feed my starter each night, I leave 50g of the old, and add to it 50g of water and 50g of organic rye, topped off with a dusting of the same organic rye. So yes, I feed it daily before I go to bed, that way, if I need to make rye for the next day, I can start my sourdough at night with fully ripe starter for the next day. Can't wait to see pictures of your rye loaves (when you get your yeast).

I know where your friend is coming from. I spent the first half of my life in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island NY. Finding good bread there was easy. Then I moved upstate NY to an area where rye bread and bagels were just fluffy stuff but when we spent almost 2 years in the Charleston area of SC there I found breads that were...I can't even find a word to describe how awful it was. I missed the NY breads so much.

I bought a copy of Greensteins, Secrets of a Jewish Baker. I love this book. I have used a number of the recipes and wonderful tips that this man gives. He owned a bakery on Long Island for many years and a number of his recipes are from his father. Greenstein has a recipe for a Sour Rye bread that is the best I have eaten since I was a kid. It is made with a starter but is really easy to do. The secret to the rye bread is that the starter is made with rye flour and the bread is mixed with First Clear flour which I get from King Arthur. There is a whole thread on this bread from October or November. This bread is very dense and moist with a chewy crust.

I am now back living in upstate NY and have made the rye over and over again. Every time I give one away I get requests for more. I have people who offer to pay me to make it for them. Through all my 40 years of baking bread and other attempts at real Jewish Rye this is the one bread that I found is a real keeper.

I'm still a newbie, and even more so in the area of rye, but I've had a great time this year with all of Hamelman's rye recipes. You do need a starter, but that's pretty easy to accomplish with the help of this site!

I think I wouldn't recommend Hamelman's approach to starters; it seemed to use unnecessary amounts of flour. Sourdolady's instructions are simplicity itself.

Audra, your husband suggested another bread book? You have to take him up on it. This site may be great, but you can always use another bread book, right?

Anyway, sounds like now you'll have to buy Secrets of a Jewish Baker. I recently took this book out of the library and liked it so much that I ordered it through my local bookstore. I have my eye on that Sour Rye. I'll have to build a rye starter converted from whole wheat; and I won't be using first clear, unless I decide to fashion my own. And I have to wait until there's room in the freezer for more bread. But that's next on the agenda.

Right, I get it now, duh! Any excuse to buy another bread cookbook! That will be next on the agenda! The Amazon used books has seen a lot of action from me in the last year! I used to be a book snob, and would only buy new books. Then I realized that I was going to "used" them also, and I can buy three for the same money! Yea! You have come up with a plan Rosalie! Thanks!

Rose Levy Beranbaum, in her baking book; "The Bread Bible", page 324 gives a recipe for "Levy's" real Jewish Rye Bread. It is a very good recipe. She uses a sponge to make it. I have made it following her recipe with very good results. I personally prefer less caraway seeds than Rose uses, so next time I would half the amount of carway seeds she calls for. But that's just my personal preference. I think her book is excellent. She has included a few recipes for things beyond bread, like brioche and sticky buns, both of which I have made and must say they're the best sticky buns I have ever tasted. The book also has some photos and a few drawings to help clarify some things. If you have a Barnes and Noble or a Borders book store near you, you may want to take a look at the Bread Bible. She has also written The Cake Bible, (I have not used it) which has won Cookbook Of The Year from the National Association of Culinary Professionals.

There is no corn in Jewish Corn bread. As already mentioned *the* best and most authentic recipe is found in the Greenstein Book, Secrets of a Jewish Baker. This bread can be made anywhere in the world as long as you have the right combination of flours

KA First Clear and White Rye flours. Like bagels it is not the NYC water that makes the difference, it is the specific ingredients that Greenstein lists.

There seems to be a place in every body's heart for their version for the perfect loaf; sort of like something your mother could fix better than anyone else. The thing that a makes it even more daunting is that I've never had the pleasure of encountering this favorite loaf of so many. But I will not give up! I look forward to the adventure. As I type my starter is bubbling away on counter. Even if thats not the one, I'll keep at it. Maybe baking bread is akin to a dog chasing a car, its the chase thats the fun!

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